THE West Australian premier is seeking to allow small businesses access to the same employment conditions as larger companies to establish fairer penalty rates throughout the week.

Colin Barnett said larger employers, such as Coles and Woolworths, often negotiated enterprise agreements with unions to compensate lower weekend and night penalty rates with higher hourly rates during the week.

The premier said WA’s small businesses were disadvantaged by award structures and he had spoken briefly to Attorney-General Michael Mischin about remedying the situation.

“There are certainly some legal difficulties but to me that’s not a reason for not trying to provide something more fairer to small business and also fairer to the employees,” Mr Barnett said.

“Why should you see that people perhaps on a second job on the weekend or students working part-time over a weekend get dramatically higher rates than people whose whole career and support in terms of their employment is working in the retail industry or the hotel sector or the entertainment sector?

“There should be penalty rates for weekend and night work but they shouldn’t be so far above the normal weekly hourly rate so it’s unfair to most people working in those industries.”

Mr Barnett said large and medium-sized corporate entities came under federal relations law but unincorporated small businesses were a state responsibility.

“That’s the typical shop you would see in a shopping mall or street shopping environment perhaps employing just two or three people,” he said.

“I think that they are the ones that are stuck with an award that stipulates higher penalty rates than Coles and Woolworths or other stores would pay.”